The Life You Say I'm Trapped In
by upwiththebirds33
Summary: **10/25: I'd love to rewrite this someday if I have time (aka nowhere in the near future XD) but I hope to (someday...?)** On the outside, Phillip Carlyle's life seems perfect, but on the inside, it's a lot different. Rated T for violence/abuse. Not sure on genre.
1. Prologue

When P.T. Barnum asked Phillip if he wanted to join the circus, Phillip would've instantly said yes, except for one minor problem.

That problem was his parents.

Ever since he started school, with his father homeschooling him, he didn't go out of the house much, not that he wanted to. He had no friends, other than his cats, Amoeba and Penelope. All the other kids his age thought he was stuck-up and arrogant, even though he wasn't. However, his parents, especially his father, were.

Phillip was also a very smart child, but he hated school. Reflecting back, he supposed that was because of his father, who believed many things about children.

Notably:

1\. That they should be seen and not heard.

2\. That they should behave properly at all times.

3\. That they should be punished for any misdemeanor.

Needless to say, Phillip did not agree with these rules set down by his father, but was obligated to follow them lest he 'become a burden and lower [the Carlyles'] social status,' in his father's words. Since Phillip didn't want to disappoint his parents, he tried his best to follow their rules. However, his father was easily angered by Phillip's honest mistakes and punished him unnecessarily for the smallest faults.

No wonder, then, that Phillip's life was miserable and he wanted to escape.


	2. Chapter 1

"PHILLIP BAILEY CARLYLE!" John Carlyle's voice echoed through the house. Phillip, with the door to his room closed while he was working on a story, didn't hear his father until it was too late. "PHILLIP!" his father hollered again, closer this time. Phillip heard his father's voice and stuffed his papers into a folder under his mattress as his father barged in.

"Oh… Father! I was just working on my composition for school!" Phillip lied. "Would you like to see it?" Phillip handed a stack of papers to his father, who shuffled through them.

"You haven't fixed the grammar mistakes I marked, Phillip." his father said, staring at him. "And where is the new work you speak of?" Phillip realized that the new papers were still on his desk, under the play he was working on. At age twelve, he had discovered plays, and now, at thirteen, he had decided to write his own. He carefully pushed the play aside and pulled out the composition to show his father. He handed it to his father, who read through it with a critical eye.

"Hand me a pen, Phillip," his father said. Phillip pulled one out from his jar of pens and pencils and handed it to his father, who, to Phillip's horror, sat down at the desk and began correcting it. As he handed the marked sheet to Phillip, the play caught his eye. "What's this?" he asked. He pulled it out and looked at it.

"Um… it's nothing!" Phillip said. Phillip's father raised his eyebrows.

"It says 'Play' on the front, young man. Is this for school? Did I ever assign a play?" his father asked. Phillip, sensing the danger in his father's voice, swallowed and thought about what to say next.

"No, sir," he replied.

"Then what is it?" his father asked.

"Um… it's something I wanted to try writing," Phillip said quietly.

"Not for school," his father asked again. Phillip shook his head.

"No, sir," he said again. His father stood up, dropping the papers on the floor.

"Then why did you write it?" his father yelled. "You know the rule, Phillip!"

"No non-school c-compositions allowed," Phillip stuttered. His father slapped him across the face.

"Why did you write this _play?_ Answer me!" Phillip's father bellowed. Phillip cowered in front of his father, blood dripping from his nose.

"B-because I wanted t-to," he answered truthfully. His father grew even angrier.

"You're grounded!" he hollered. "For a week!" He slapped Phillip again and strode out of the room as Phillip threw himself on the bed and wept, the blood staining the white pillowcase as shuddering sobs convulsed his body. Amoeba and Penelope, his two cats, poked their heads out from under the bed to see if Mr. Carlyle was gone and jumped up on the bed next to him. Penelope climbed onto his stomach and Amoeba curled around his head, calming him down enough to think logically. He seldom left his room and almost never left the house, so being grounded shouldn't be a big deal. Still, he had a bad feeling in his gut about the next few days.

* * *

The next morning, he found some oatmeal, two slices of bacon, and a glass of milk on his desk, along with a note. It read:

 _You are not to leave this room for one week. After consideration and speaking to your mother, I have burned your little play. However, in the future, I will be assigning plays for you to write, since you seem to have a small amount of skill in this field and being a playwright might bring honor to the family. Your punishment for disobeying me will be tomorrow. Stay in your room until I collect you tomorrow. In the meantime, you should complete your schoolwork and reflect on your actions yesterday._

— _Father_

Phillip slumped down in his chair, and his cats jumped into his lap. He fed them each a slice of bacon and tried to eat some oatmeal, but only managed a few bites.

"Why does Father hate me?" he asked Amoeba, who licked his face as if to say, _He may, but I don't_. He rubbed her head affectionately, and she purred. Phillip put his head down on his desk, feeling tears slip down his face and onto the wood. He fell asleep there and woke up an hour later. He decided to work on his schoolwork to pass the time, since he didn't dare take out his story from under the bed. Penelope sat on his desk and Amoeba sat on his bed while he worked.

Around two that afternoon, he finished his work and sat back in his chair. He didn't have the next day's work yet, so he pulled a book off his shelf and started to read. He read until dinner, when one of the maids knocked on the door with a tray of food. She left the food and nearly ran out the door without talking to Phillip, who guessed that his father must have given the servants strict orders not to talk to him. He sighed and tried to eat something, managing all of the rice and half the chicken on his plate, avoiding the boiled vegetables like the plague.

After dinner, he changed into pajamas and fell asleep, too tired to worry about the day ahead.


	3. Chapter 2

Phillip was woken early the next morning by a loud knock on his door. A maid entered with a tray of food and a letter, which simply said:

 _Be ready at 9AM._

— _Father_

Phillip got dressed quickly and tried to eat, but couldn't manage to swallow anything. He ended up feeding the bacon to his cats again and leaving the oatmeal. At nine sharp, his father knocked on the door and led him to the library.

"Your punishment today is to write, _I will follow the rules my parents have set for me_ 200 times." his father said.

"But—" Phillip started. He was quickly interrupted by his father.

"But nothing," his father said. "You will do as I say, and that is final. Do you understand, Phillip?" Phillip nodded and started to write, numbering the sentences as he went along.

* * *

After 2 ½ hours, Phillip finished writing the sentences and gave them to his father for approval. His father, finding nothing wrong with them, let him go back to his room to do the rest of his schoolwork and go to bed. The rest of the week passed uneventfully, and the day after he was released from being grounded, he was bold enough to try working on his story, with the door to his room open so he could hear if his parents needed something from him. He was not caught, however, and he finished the story, hiding it under a loose floorboard in the library so no one would find it. After he finished his work every day, he would spend some time working on the play he was assigned to write and then he would write more of the story he started after the first one. This story he hid under the mattress so he could access it easily. One day, however, disaster struck.

On Tuesday, the maids were doing laundry, so one of them collected the sheets from all the beds to wash. When she collected Phillip's sheets, however, she found the draft of his story that he had hidden under the mattress. She immediately brought it to the attention of Mr. Carlyle, who was no less than furious that Phillip had disobeyed his orders.

"PHILLIP!" he hollered. Phillip, who had been in the library looking for something to read, mentally cursed himself for whatever he had done to offend his father. He ran out of the library and found his father in the living room holding a folder. And suddenly, he realized—his father had found the story he was writing and had hidden under his mattress. Phillip's heart sank to the bottom of his shoes as his father approached him.

"What is the meaning of this, Phillip?" his father thundered. Phillip trembled in fear, wondering how his father had found the papers.

"I was… um… practicing my plot development techniques?" Phillip said. His father raised his eyebrows.

"Oh really? If this was for school, then why was it hidden under your bed?" he asked. Phillip cringed inwardly at his feeble excuse. "This has gone too far, Phillip!" He pulled Phillip outside into the garden. Phillip smelled the scent of roses on the air and wondered why, if his father was so angry, he had taken him out here. He soon found out.

"Stay here," his father told him as he disappeared into the shed. He came out a moment later with a whip, and Phillip choked back a scream as his father approached, rage in his eyes. He threw the whip onto the ground and ripped off Phillip's shirt as Phillip clenched his teeth, willing himself not to make a sound, trying not to give his father any satisfaction that his punishment had worked.

He screamed anyway.

* * *

That night, Phillip cried until he had no tears left to give. His father had warned him not to tell his mother, since 'she had enough to worry about already.' Phillip thought this was complete and utter baloney, since he wasn't allowed to swear, but he didn't say anything to anyone. He tried taking a shower, since that normally calmed him down, but the water hurt the lashes on his back too much, so he ended up pulling on a pair of pajama pants and falling asleep with his cats curled around his head.

In the morning, he woke to sunshine and the scent of roses streaming through the open windows. He slammed them closed. He went to his desk, where he found only a note from his father.

 _You will join us for breakfast this morning at 10AM sharp. Be fully dressed and speak nothing of yesterday to your mother._

— _Father_

Phillip angrily crumpled the note and threw it on the floor. Penelope picked it up and batted it at his leg. He almost yelled at her, but then realized that his cats had nothing to do with yesterday and that it would be unfair to blame them. He sighed and went to the bathroom to clean himself up somewhat, still avoiding the shower. He opted to clean off the blood as best he could with a towel and wear a dress shirt and a vest. He pulled on a clean pair of pants, his dress shirt, suspenders, and vest, and walked down to the dining room. His mother and father were already seated, but it was only 9:55. He gave a silent sigh of relief as he sat down at the table.

"How did you sleep last night, Phillip?" his mother asked. Phillip was tempted to make a biting remark about yesterday, but his father glared at him and he reconsidered.

"Fine," he answered. _Although that would depend on your interpretation of fine_ , he thought to himself.

"Did you do anything interesting yesterday?" she asked. Phillip almost choked on his sausage.

 _Yes_ , he thought. _My father beat me yesterday in the garden because I wrote something that wasn't for educational purposes. I can barely move without pain shooting through my body and I slept terribly last night, thanks for asking. My cats are the only ones who love me anymore, and my father hates me more than anyone else in the world._ He decided that this was not a good answer and revised it to, "Just some schoolwork and reading, nothing much." His mother nodded her approval.

"How is your play coming?" she asked.

"Very well, actually," he replied. In truth, it was terribly boring and full of morals, but it was what his father had said to write. And since he didn't want to risk his father's wrath, he did what he was told.


	4. Chapter 3

The rest of the month passed in relative quiet. Phillip did what he was told and his father mostly left him alone. He kept his windows closed and stayed away from the garden as the lashes on his back slowly turned to scars, scars that would be with him for the rest of his life.

He finished the play his father had made him write and started on another. It was the middle of summer now, and everyone else his age was out of school on vacation, but his father still made him do work. He still hadn't forgiven him for that day in the garden, but slowly gained hope that it would never happen again. Sadly, he was wrong.

In the middle of July, his father was pacing in the library, trying to decide on a date for the party he was hosting to celebrate his and his wife's anniversary, when he heard a hollow thud as his foot hit the floor. He knelt down, inspecting the floor, and found a loose board. He pulled it up and found a neat stack of papers with Phillip's handwriting on them. As he skimmed through the first page, he realized what it was—the first story Phillip had written.

* * *

This time, Mr. Carlyle didn't bother yelling for Phillip. He dragged his son into the garden and pulled out the whip from the shed. As Phillip protested, pleading for mercy, his father pulled off his shirt, and the pain started again.

Phillip tried his best to stay silent, but the pain was too much.

He ended up screaming again.

* * *

Phillip's father stopped hesitating to beat him for the smallest mistakes. Days, weeks, months, years passed as Phillip grew more and more irritable and antisocial. He wrote plays and sometimes went to see them, but couldn't stand all his parents' snobby rich friends. He started drinking to dull the pain. His parents were angry at him for becoming 'a scandal,' but he didn't care anymore. He mostly stayed home during the day and went with his parents to their parties and things at night. His life was still miserable, although he had his cats to keep him company. He was finally finished with the homeschool courses and had gone to college in the city, but he almost never went anywhere else than home or out with his parents, since he had finished college. And even then, he avoided going out anywhere as much as possible.

Which is why, when P.T. approached him that day after one of his plays, he jumped at the chance to leave, to be somewhere every day where he would be accepted, to have actual friends who appreciated him for who he was and not just how much money his family had. When P.T. finally asked, he wanted to say yes immediately, but stopped, wondering what his parents would think. But when P.T. continued, promising to give him a life that would be better than the life he had, he couldn't say no.


	5. Epilogue

A Month Later:

Phillip finally felt like he belonged somewhere. All the other performers welcomed him as one of their own. He had a job he enjoyed, and he could write whatever he wanted when he had time. He also got to perform in the shows, which was one of the greatest things he had done in his life.

And, because of the circus, he met Anne. Anne, who was more talented on the trapeze than he could ever wish to be in his wildest dreams. Anne, whose laugh made him melt inside. Anne, who loved him for who he was, even with all his faults and shortcomings. Anne, who helped him learn the dances for performances that he never would've gotten on his own. Anne, who never gave up on him, even when he gave up on himself. Anne, who helped him out of his cage and into a world where everyone was special and everyone could be who they were meant to be, even with all their scars.

 **THE END**

* * *

Okay guys I hope you liked the story! Please review! Thank you!


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